


24 Things About The So-Called Us, or An Epilogue of Sorts

by J_Baillier



Series: Never Easy And Never Over [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Complicated Relationships, F/M, Family, Idiots in Love, M/M, Romance, Sherlock Holmes and Feelings, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson in Love, aftermath of "From Here No Lines Are Drawn", not exactly polyamory but there is a sort of an agreement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 06:37:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5238176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Baillier/pseuds/J_Baillier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twenty-four glimpses into life at the Watson-Morstan-Holmes household, where a precarious agreement holds everything in place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	24 Things About The So-Called Us, or An Epilogue of Sorts

**Author's Note:**

> Many readers hoped for an extra chapter to "From Here No Lines Are Drawn". This is the answer to those requests - a thank-you note to those who enjoyed the story and wanted more. 
> 
> I decided to make this into a separate short fic instead of just adding it to the main one, because stylistically this is quite different. No solutions or long-term predictions are made here as to whether this arrangement between Sherlock, Mary and John will ever work. Their situation, as life often goes, is wrought with difficulty and complication.

**1 am on a warm sunny Sunday**  
It is a precarious sort of balance they have struck. The fear of failure looms at the edges like a thunderstorm in the horizon, but they plough on. As long as they don't stop to analyze too much, things seem deceptively simple: Sherlock has John, John has Mary, they're all a team.

Lying on the sofa in his dressing gown, left sock half off his foot after being tugged at by Benjamin Watson, Sherlock reflects on the concept of jealousy. As long as he gets what all he wants in terms of John's companionship apart from those nights allocated to Mary, will it start bothering him at some point that he doesn't have exclusivity? Or will the same eventually drive Mary away or lead to such bitterness in John that their sand castle will crumble?

Only time will tell. They shall plough on, one day at a time.

The house is silent, even Mrs Hudson has turned off her television and ther kitchen lights no longer reflects from the aluminum shieldings via the rubbish bin canopy onto the curtain in the leftmost window of the sitting room. The house is silent, but not empty. Sherlock imagines he can sense the three other people present - baby Benjamin in Sherlock's old bedroom-turned-nursery; John and Mary upstairs. It is a comforting sort of presence, even though marred with uncertainties.

 **2 am on a January Saturday**  
John has succumbed to the siren song of slumber hours earlier, the flu season keeping his days at the clinic very laborious. Sherlock is still sitting by the kitchen table, peering into his microscope. Mary's film ends and she turns off the television, stretching. She turns in the armchair to peer at Sherlock. "Aren't you going to turn in?"

Sherlock adjusts the image and does not look up. "Not tired. During cases, I rarely---"

"Eat or sleep. I know. It's not wholesome, though, is it."

Sherlock sighs and looks up. Mary springs up from her chair and goes to rummage around the kitchen cabinets. She soon produces a small bag of chocolate-covered raisins which she present to Sherlock.

"I thought we'd ran out," he comments quietly.

"I have some hiding places you don't know about."

Sherlock looks at her incredulously. "I doubt it. John is terrible at hiding things and he does most of the shopping."

"I wish you'd eat normal food. It's a bit like feeding a kid, really, no veggies, just sweets."

"The brain only utilizes glucose as its fuel."

Mary sighs. Sherlock presents the package back to her, and she opens it for him, rolling her eyes. "Prat."

Sherlock is annoyed. He likes Mary, but only John has earned the right to refer to him with such derogatory endearments. The jury is still out whether Mary will earn this privilege.

 **3 am on a Tuesday sometime in September**  
First there is a whimper, then a pregnant bit silence, and then the unconsolable wail of Benjamin Alexander Watson pierces the chilly night air of 221a and b Baker Street. The baby monitor distorts the noise into a shrill cacophony upstairs. John wearily flips the corner of his duvet away from his torso but can't bring himself to fully exit the warm wonderfullness of the bed yet. Next to his, Mary stirs and raises her head from her pillow, expectant. John curses quietly, and is about the pluck up the courage to expose his toes to the cold floor when suddenly the baby monitor goes almost silent. The infant is no longer crying, but a rustling of the bedding can be heard through the monitor until a blessed silence overcomes the apartment. 

Then, a quiet violin begins to sing. A Brahms lullaby floats through the doorway, echoing with the lagged transmission through the baby monitor.

John burrows back under the covers. Mary lets her head flop back down onto his pillow and says, "God I love that man."

 **4 am on a Sunday in June**  
Sherlock sleeps. It turns out that a valid way of curing his previously very treatment-resistant insomnia is to have a fitfully sleeping baby in the house, waking all of them up every few hours.

 **5 am on the same Sunday**  
John gets up to drink a glass of water. First he stumbles on one of Benjamin's toys and then on Sherlock's bucket of bear innards, which upends. He draws in a deep breath, reminds himself that this holy hell is one he has cooked up for himself, and then continues to the kitchen.

 **6 am on a snowy Wednesday morning in December**  
The hot water runs out during Sherlock's extensive morning routine. Mary yells until Mrs Hudson pads up the stairs to offer her a chance to shower in her apartment.

 **7 am on a Friday in October**  
John gives Sherlock a tie pin. He had originally thought about getting a ring and even sought Mary's permission to do so, but in the end felt awkward. Sherlock is confused, Mary is slightly amused and John feels like he often does - like he could have done more in a very abstract sense.

 **8 am on some weekday**  
John blows off work to attend a case and Mary's the one who has to reschedule his patients.

 **9 am a year later**  
Sherlock is convinced that a seven-month old Benjamin has uttered his first word and it's 'Sherlock'. John tells him that since even 'momma' is still proving too difficult it's unlikely the boy could have articulated such a difficult word. Sherlock is unfazed and very, very proud.

 **10 am on Benjamin's birthday**  
Considering how little attention Sherlock pays to anyone else's birthday, it's surprising how carefully he plans the festivities for his sort-of-stepson's second one, refusing to leave such a monumentally important undertaking to the child's actual parents. Even Mycroft gets eventually invited, even though Sherlock suggests he could have easily partaken via Skype.

 **11 am on a foggy Friday**  
"If the next things that comes out of your mouth contains words such as 'sentiment' or 'arbitrary', I swear I'm going to smack you about the head. You're going to get your coat, put on your ridiculously poncy shoes, grab your Oyster card and go and buy John a birthday present. And make it a good one. Deduce him. I know you can do it." 

Sherlock obeys.

 **12 pm on a terrible day**  
An exhausted Sherlock is a little slower than he usually is in his deductions, and the kidnapping victim dies. Gruesomely. 

It's not fine. 

He's not fine, and it takes infuriatingly little coaxing from John to tear open the floodgates of emotion when they get back home, where Mary has stayed behind to tend to Benjamin. 

An hour later, an emotionally still wrecked Sherlock learns that even though hugs are pathetic and proverbial and cliched, they do help, and when it comes to the amount of huggers, more is sometimes definitely more.

 **1 pm on Mycroft's birthday, which everybody happily ignores**  
Sherlock and Mary have a shouting match over dishwashing duties and some unidentified phlegm found in a jar on Mary's shelf in the bathroom. John shakes his head and snaps his newspaper straight.

 **2 pm on a busy Saturday**  
John is used to fixing Sherlock. Patching him up, sewing up his wounds, cheering him up after a badly ended case. It turns out that the practical doctoring part is much easier to do if he has a scrub nurse at his disposal. Mary is handy in another sense as well - nagging about the benefits of a sense of self-preservation has more gravitas when done two against one.

 **3 pm on some day in August**  
Mary has the flu. Sherlock's attempts at soup are judged to be unfit for human consumption but everyone appreciates the effort anyway. And orders in Chinese.

 **4 pm on a Wednesday in February**  
John has the flu, so it is decided that Mary will temp as Sherlock's assistant. The experiment is much more enjoyable for Mary than it is for Sherlock. There is much less adoring praise vocalized. "Your position is not threatened," Sherlock announces after they have returned home and John asks how things went. He takes this as a compliment.

 **5 pm on a day Sherlock mistook for Tuesday even though it isn't, because there hasn't been a proper case in three weeks and he's close to reaching breaking point, really**  
Sherlock presents John with the last of his cocaine to avoid succumbing to temptation. He needs to keep his focus now, because life is complicated and there's a baby present and look how well everything went the last time he tried to participate in the comings and goings on John's family while high as a kite. John commends him, gives him a hug and sprinkles the substance into the toilet bowl. It looks like falling snow and Sherlock is momentarily mesmerized. They tell nothing of this to Mary.

 **6 pm on Christmas Day**  
Sherlock gifts Mary with a set of Victoria's Secret lingerie, because that is what the ladies' magazines he has consulted have suggested a male ought to purchase to the most important female in his life. John is in stitches, Mary is oddly somewhat flattered by his diligence, and Sherlock is dismayed because he cannot figure out what is so bloody funny. 

**7 pm on a lazy Sunday**  
John and Mary return from the movies to find six ambulances and three police cars parked in front of 221b Baker Street. Turns out that Sherlock is convinced Benjamin has contracted epiglottitis and has utilized Mycroft, bomb threats, texts to Lestrade and quite a hefty dose of his acting skills to procure a good chunk of London's emergency services to their home. It turns out that the baby was merely gurgling in excitement at his new mobile. John and Mary appreciate Sherlock's level of concern and are amused, until they find out they will all be fined. Luckily Uncle Mycroft makes the whole incident disappear from police records.

 **8 pm on a Monday like any other**  
Mrs Hudson visits and when she asks after John and Mary, Sherlock points to their bedroom. Mrs Hudson then accidentally walks in on them having sex. She returns to the living room, cheeks flush and angry at Sherlock. "You should have known, dear. Really, Sherlock, embarrassing us all like that!"

"It is not an uncommon occurrence and according to my experience they are perfectly capable of continuing their ministrations after being interrupted. I didn't know how urgent your business with them was so I directed you forth."

 **9 pm on a Monday just before Easter**  
As usual, a bystander immediately assumes John and Sherlock are shagging. Sherlock confirms said person's suspicions and John groans, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his palm. Lestrade gapes and reminds them both that John is married. "What on Earth does that got to do with anything?" Sherlock enquires, sounding bewildered.

 **10 pm on the darkest day of November two months after John, Benjamin and Mary have moved in**  
John stands up and ties the sash of his bathrobe tighter around his waist. "I'm gonna turn in," he announces to noone in particular. Sherlock sits up, hair a bit disheleved from languishing on the sofa all day. He stares quite longingly after John who is heading to the bathroom.

Mary, knitting in one of the armchairs, looks slightly amused. Sherlock looks at her expectantly and somehow she seems to know he is doing so even though she hasn't even looked up. "Oh go on then, I know you want to," she comments dryly.

"It's your night," Sherlock reminds her tentatively. Mary shrugs. Sherlock deduces this to be further confirmation that he has permission now. When he hears John opening the bathroom door and heading upstairs, he flings himself off the sofa and after the man.

 **11 pm on a boring, boring, tedious, terrible, dreadful Thursday**  
Crap telly is on. John is leaning onto Mary, and Sherlock has spilled himself all over the rest of the sofa, head on John's lap. It's surprising, the amount of people you can fit into a sofa or into a relationship with some joint effort.

 **12 pm two years later**  
Judging by the sorts of muffled sounds her husband and her flatmate are starting to create behind the closed door of Sherlock's bedroom, Mary decides it's time for a moonlight walk. Oddly, she doesn't feel all that jealous. All that is going on had been going on long before she'd ever set eyes on John Watson, and without Sherlock it would've been unlikely she had ever been allowed to keep the man for so long. It is more than gratitude, however, that keeps her from becoming bitter over the fact that she shares her marriage with a third person. Sherlock had graciously stepped aside once because he'd wishes happiness for John and for Mary. It was time to return the favour.

She doesn't have all that many people in her life. This means not a lot of people will care about the choices she has made or frown upon her living arrangements. Until Benjamin goes to school, that is. Still, when asked to choose between losing both her husband and the father of her child, and settling for this strange thing, the seeds of which had been planted long before she had laid eyes on John Watson, she was willing to try. Because wasn't that was life was about, in a way - making the best of a complicated situation? She had never been one to plan long-term, to go for the easy and ordinary route. Nor had Sherlock. John was the one holding onto all the common boring constructs of society's expectations, as Sherlock liked to call them. Only time would tell, whether these would prove their unraveling.

They plough on.

 

_\- The End -_


End file.
